As valedictorian of his high school class, Ben Bowling thought a lot about what he would say in his speech at graduation. The high school senior from Bell County, Kentucky, stepped up to the podium and offered some words of wisdom for his classmates and their families.
“This is the part of my speech where I share some inspirational quotes I found on Google,” Bowling said. “‘Don’t just get involved. Fight for your seat at the table. Better yet, fight for a seat at the head of the table.‘ – Donald J. Trump.”
The crowd erupted with applause. Then Bowling interrupted their cheers.
“Just kidding,” Bowling said. “That was Barack Obama.”
The 18-year-old said after he revealed it was not Mr. Trump who said the quote, but actually Mr. Obama, the crowd quickly went silent.
Zuckerberg slams Apple’s Tim Cook’s comments on Facebook as ‘extremely glib’
‘”You know, I find that argument, that if you’re not paying that somehow we can’t care about you, to be extremely glib. And not at all aligned with the truth,” said Zuckerberg.’
Hamming’s Closed Door Paradox
I noticed the following facts about people who work with the door open or the door closed. I notice that if you have the door to your office closed, you get more work done today and tomorrow, and you are more productive than most. But 10 years later somehow you don’t know quite know what problems are worth working on; all the hard work you do is sort of tangential in importance. He who works with the door open gets all kinds of interruptions, but he also occasionally gets clues as to what the world is and what might be important. Now I cannot prove the cause and effect sequence because you might say, “The closed door is symbolic of a closed mind.” I don’t know. But I can say there is a pretty good correlation between those who work with the doors open and those who ultimately do important things, although people who work with doors closed often work harder. Somehow they seem to work on slightly the wrong thing – not much, but enough that they miss fame.
Thomas Jefferson: Autobiography, 6 Jan.-29 July 1821, 6 January 1821
nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free. nor is it less certain that the two races, equally free, cannot live in the same government. nature, habit, opinion has drawn indelible lines of distinction between them. it is still in our power to direct the process of emancipation and deportation peaceably and in such slow degree as that the evil will wear off insensibly, and their place be peri passu filled up by free white laborers. if on the contrary it is left to force itself on, human nature must shudder at the prospect held up. we should in vain look for an example in the Spanish deportation or deletion of the Moors. this precedent would fall far short of our case.